Reinhard Hütter (Duke University)
This master class is open to all graduate and undergraduate students, including non-University of Chicago students. Space is limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. If you have any questions, please contact Mark Franzen.
This three-hour seminar will focus on the one of Newman’s works, which he himself called “the best, not the most perfect, book I have done.” The Oxford University Sermons are the Anglican precursor and still the best introduction to the Catholic Newman’s masterwork, The Grammar of Assent. Sermons 10-15 constitute a precis of Newman’s mature theory of religious belief. In these sermons he develops the epistemological basis for belief in objective dogma and dogmatic theology. The masterclass will focus its attention especially on sermons 10-13.
No background knowledge of the topic is required to participate. Copies of the book John Henry Newman, Fifteen Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford Between A.D. 1826 and 1843, introd. by Mary Katherine Tillman (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997) will be provided free of charge for participants.
Readings:
- Sermon 10 “Faith and Reason, Contrasted as Habits of Mind”
- Sermon 11 “The Nature of Faith in Relation to Reason”
- Sermon 12 “Love as Safeguard of Faith against Superstition”
- Sermon 13 “Implicit and Explicit Reason”